Foodservice equipment supplier Edward Don & Co. employs a targeted marketing strategy that helps it deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.

By Alicia Orr Suman

For Edward Don & Co., supplying “everything but the food” has long been its motto. The foodservice equipment supplier sells its customers, including Applebee’s Restaurants and the Opryland Hotel, a range of items, from serving glasses, plates and napkins, to kitchen utensils, stoves and fryers.

While those clients enjoy browsing their “Don” catalogs for the latest trends in how to use a martini glass to serve chocolate mousse, the same restaurant managers aren’t likely to buy a new $10,000 refrigerator unit off the page of a catalog.